Italian At The Intercontinental

FOLLY: Nosa and I have never eaten at any of the Intercontinental's restaurants so we came here to change that. They have the main buffet style restaurant on the ground floor (Ekaabo) and two on the second floor - Milano and Soho. Soho is Asian cuisine, while Milano, the one we ate at, is Italian.

NOSA: <rant>

First things first, their chair are ridiculously low. It sounds minor, but when a big man like me feels like a toddler without a booster seat, you've done your interior decorating wrong. I can't believe none of the managers has sat on these chairs and seen how they are a problem. This is a multinational hotel we're talking about here. The waiter had to get us cushions from outside.

</rant>

We got their Shaki Pizza to start.

FOLLY: They have an Italy meets Nigeria section of their menu and being the curious cats that we are, we had to try something from this section. Nosa originally ordered the asun pizza but it wasn't available so we settled for the Shaki pizza instead.

NOSA: You didn't read that wrong. They have asun AND shaki pizza.

FOLLY: I thought it was odd that they spelled shaki as "shaky" on their menu. Intercontinental is clearly not above those pesky menu typos eh?

NOSA: I liked the pizza to be honest, and I'd probably get it again if I went there. The crust wasn't the greatest thing, but it's manageable. If you've ever had pizza from Amigo in Abuja or Double4, you'll be very familiar with the crust. Tastes like pizza in Nigeria pre-Dominos.

FOLLY: Nosa ordered the pizza so I don't know how the menu described it but I I'd have preferred this without the large pepper slices and with just the shaki, which could have been way tenderer.

NOSA: For my first (we'll get to this in a second) main, I got the Pappardelle in red wine sauce and and parma ham. I got served this clumpy mess:

If you've never had pappardelle pasta, it should look like this

I'm not referring to the color here, but take a look at this clumpy mess.

FOLLY: Nosa made a video on snapchat. He actually couldn't get one independent "strip of pasta"

NOSA: Like everything is "stuck" together. I don't even know how to describe it. Think clumpy rice, but the pasta version. I called the waiter's attention to this little issue and dude says it's like that because it's homemade. This is like that time we went to Mama Ebo and some dude told us that we're aje butter for expecting non-clumpy rice at a buka.

Anyway, shoutout to the waiter for being a good sport and changing out my order.

FOLLY: For my main, I had a Shrimp Risotto. I haven't had risotto that many times, in fact the first time I had it was earlier this month by Chef Imoteda. I had always imagined that risotto was just soggy rice, it's actually not because you use a special kind of rice and you add wine, stock, butter etc.

NOSA: More fried rice than risotto if you ask me.

FOLLY: The risotto at Milano was a major disappointment because it wasn't soft enough, and it still had what you'd call a hard bite and I don't think that's how risotto is meant to be. There was also no moisture at all in my plate and it was completely dry which is another risotto no no.

NOSA: If they called this "Italian Fried Rice", might have changed the perception a bit. And it would have been in line with their "Italian meets Nigerian" whatever.

FOLLY: I thought the little shrimp pieces tossed throughout the risotto were a nice touch but overall, I didn't enjoy this dish the way it was made.

NOSA: For my replacement main, I got the Penne Carbonara, which was pretty meh. It was infinitely better than my first main though. I'll give them that. A little heavy on the cream.

Scratch that.

VERY heavy on the cream.

In all honesty, it wasn't very good. But if it's any consolation, it's better than the one I had at La Taverna.

POSTSCRIPT

FOLLY: The best thing about this meal was the 15% discount that we got at the end because we used a Diamond Bank card to pay.

NOSA: Shouts to Diamond Bank. That's why we bank with you.

FOLLY: The waiter was also pretty good, his hovering didn't allow me take pictures comfortably though but at least we weren't abandoned on the restaurant floor which was good. Cocktails were too expensive so we drank water.

NOSA: Overall, I don't think Milano is for me. Some guy on Twitter says they're great so maybe this is an isolated incident, but as for me and my house, it's not for us. The pizza is pretty decent though.